'Evangelical Christianity Has Been Hijacked':
An Interview with Tony Campolo
Thanks to Kyle for this link to an interview with Tony Campolo.


posted by Jimmy at 2:23 PM | |

 
Mike King is Blogging
Hey, I've added Mike King's blog to our blogroll. He's the director of YouthFront up in Kansas City and is involved with Jacob's Well. I don't really know Mike, but I met him on Mark's "The Failure of Youth Ministry" forum at the YS Convention in Dallas. His words made me think...so I'm sure his blog will be a good source for that as well. Here's a quote from Mike at the YS convention:

"When I found out I was being served communion by a lady who was there because of the ministry to prostitutes, I knew I was in the right church."

posted by Jimmy at 1:04 PM | |

 
New Liquidthinking Products
Hey, for the 12 of you who still read this blog after our 3 month hiatus and the 20 or so people each day who show up here by searching for things like "explaining gospel with playing cards ", we've added a new product to the liquidthinking line: HCIDWJWDIIDKWJD? designs.

That's right HCIDWJWDIIDKWJD? -- How Can I Do What Jesus Would Do If I Don't Know What Jesus Did? I'm pretty sure it will catch on like crazy and take the Christian sub-culture by storm. I'm hoping this will make me rich...writing an end-time book is just too hard.

Note: We have closed-out our 20 Days of Purpose product line. It seems the purpose driven market only held people's attention for a little more than a month.

posted by Jimmy at 9:24 PM | |

 
Talitha Koum
He had held this hand before.

Not this particular hand, but the cold hand of death...and he had seen it's face many times. He remembered traveling to celebrate the Passover as a child, and the road was lined with the poles of a thousand crucifixion's on either side. He would never forget those faces.

And now here he was, looking into that face again and holding death's cold hand.

He remembered holding his father's hand for unmeasured time after his death. He had prayed for him. Hoping so deeply that God's will would be bent and that mercy would be granted. It had seemed so final...so defiant. "Work the miracles here that you did in Capernaum!" the voice echoed in his head. All these works he had done, and yet he could do nothing to breathe life back into his own dad's body. "Do something!" his mother had pleaded in anguish. "It's not my time...it's not my time..." he had answered.

Empty.

Helpless.

And now he held the hand of death again. But this time it was small and soft. Not the hand of a old carpenter, but of a little girl. A cold hand that masked the warmth of life that must have moved so vibrantly within her not so long ago. And again the feeling of helplessness came and the mocking defiant voice, "What can you do?"

On my own I can do nothing. (Faith has a funny way of showing up when you can't trust yourself.) This is the blessing and curse of being man, he thought. Not helplessness, but dependence.

He gripped the hand and smiled in the face of death, leaned forward and kissed it.

"Talitha coum..." He whispered joyfully, "Talitha coum! Little girl, wake up..."

posted by Jimmy at 1:04 AM | |

 
Alan goes to church

Alan Roxburgh writes this and I think it is helpful.

"The speaker was a Black African refugee from Burundi. He is part of our community, a preacher whose name is Joseph. His children are still in Africa and his wife died just a few months ago. He began with stories of reconciliation and justice following the terrible killings in Africa. Then, he suddenly shifted from story to concepts. He began to give us theological dictionary definitions of shalom. I sat there stunned! Here was an African in North America no more than eighteen months and already he was into a deeply modern, Western imagination – giving us the standard textbook definitions of shalom (which are just so far from the point its not funny). Then he went to talk about two types of conflict – inner and outer.
I was now getting really discouraged because I knew what would come next. There is the inner conflict that the individual has with him/herself; there is the conflict we have with others and the former causes the later. Once this duality is established and implicitly rooted in the subjective individual, then the solution is not far away – a personal relationship with Jesus (don’t get me wrong, I believe a relationship with Jesus is a really big thing). I was stunned by what this beautiful African man, now in North America, was doing. He was already deeply embedded in a modern, Western imagination of abstractions and subjective individualism wherein the only way the Gospel gets applied is personal relationship. Surely, I thought, this cannot explain what happened between the Tutsi and Hutus in Africa? Surely, he has something more to bring us than our deadening categories? But he didn’t! "



link for the whole story
posted by riddle at 10:11 PM | |

 

Hmmmm....how many end-time books are being written at this very moment?

posted by Jimmy at 6:19 PM | |

 
The End of Mark's Blogfast:

Mark has moved his personal blog to:


markriddle.blogspot.com

link

and I'll be posting around here more often.


posted by riddle at 2:35 PM | |

 
Eight
His finger cut through the sand and dirt. It wasn't the first time he had seen his finger write in the the flesh of the earth. On the mountain he had written these very words in the stone. He had given them to his people...those he had chosen to make his own. Words that were meant for life.

And this is what they had done with it. They had taken the very words meant for life and twisted them into an excuse to accuse and to rain down death with stones. Lists to decide who was right and who was wrong, who was in and who was out.

He could hardly finish...they demanded that he reveal his stance on their lists. "What do you say that we should do?!?"

He stood up and looked at them. How many times had he told them his desires for them? His heart broke....for her, for them, for all those sons of hell bound by their rules. "Whoever has no sin...you throw the first stone."

He stooped again to continue writing, but this time he wiped the ground smooth. He touched the ground softly and closed his eyes, he remembered what it was like when he first felt the clay in his hand that he had made into man. He remembered the pain when they first turned away and he sent them from the garden.


posted by Jimmy at 10:33 PM | |

 
So...

tonight I resigned from BVC.
more info to come...


posted by riddle at 9:46 PM | |